From Taylor On Radio, 5/6/10
Citadel wants to tear up part of its 2006 deal with Disney – but Disney owns names like “WABC”, “WLS”, “KGO”, “ABC Radio”
That could definitely give you some leverage.
The sharp Disney lawyers say it’s negotiating1 with Citadel, but that Citadel can’t reject part of the 2006 sale package but keep the intellectual property licenses for some of its biggest stations and properties – not to mention domain names like “ABCRadio.com.”
So to protect itself, The Walt Disney Company files a “reservation of rights” with the bankruptcy court in New York that’s overseeing Citadel’s passage through Chapter 11. Among the IP (intellectual property) rights it asserts are ownership of these marks – KABC, KGO, ABC, KGO Newstalk, WABC and WLS. These URLs – KABC.com, KGOAM810.com, KGORadio.net, KGORadio.org, WABCRadio.com, WLSAM.com.
These trademarks – “ABC Radio”, "ABC Radio Networks” (of course Citadel switched to “Citadel Media” a while back), plus a bunch of sales-network names. And URLs such as ABCradio.com, ABCRadioChicago.com, ABCTexas.com, and a bunch more. Disney lawyer Martin Bienenstock says Disney “requests that this court deny the debtors’ request to assume the IP licenses except as part of a [larger] settlement.”
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If nothing else, this gives us a glimpse of some parts of the Citadel-ABC deal. It makes you wonder just how some parts of the deal were put together.
1translation: "this is the way it's going to be..."
Citadel wants to tear up part of its 2006 deal with Disney – but Disney owns names like “WABC”, “WLS”, “KGO”, “ABC Radio”
That could definitely give you some leverage.
The sharp Disney lawyers say it’s negotiating1 with Citadel, but that Citadel can’t reject part of the 2006 sale package but keep the intellectual property licenses for some of its biggest stations and properties – not to mention domain names like “ABCRadio.com.”
So to protect itself, The Walt Disney Company files a “reservation of rights” with the bankruptcy court in New York that’s overseeing Citadel’s passage through Chapter 11. Among the IP (intellectual property) rights it asserts are ownership of these marks – KABC, KGO, ABC, KGO Newstalk, WABC and WLS. These URLs – KABC.com, KGOAM810.com, KGORadio.net, KGORadio.org, WABCRadio.com, WLSAM.com.
These trademarks – “ABC Radio”, "ABC Radio Networks” (of course Citadel switched to “Citadel Media” a while back), plus a bunch of sales-network names. And URLs such as ABCradio.com, ABCRadioChicago.com, ABCTexas.com, and a bunch more. Disney lawyer Martin Bienenstock says Disney “requests that this court deny the debtors’ request to assume the IP licenses except as part of a [larger] settlement.”
---
If nothing else, this gives us a glimpse of some parts of the Citadel-ABC deal. It makes you wonder just how some parts of the deal were put together.
1translation: "this is the way it's going to be..."
